The Baby Show London Olympia 1st time dad visit

The Baby Photographer

Sympathy Pains

Published on Saturday, 25 October 2014 08:00

Last Updated on 24 October 2014

Michael Shilling

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My first visit to the Baby Show was at London’s Excel Exhibition Centre back in February. Back then I was wearing my London Mums blogging hat and my expectant father hat.

Our Baby Show list

A high chair

Water Wipes

Dibble Bibs

Mam Bottles

Baby sleeping bags

Baby shower present

Before we could get started we met up with Monica from London Mums who was keen to meet Elodiedh for the first time. I was then dragged down the central aisle to see Emily from BundleBean for a demo of their multi-use waterproof footmuff.

We left the stand with a fleece lined grey elephant design which looks awesome on our black Wayfayer. Just in time for the clocks to change and winter to rear its drizzling head!

Before we could begin to work on our list Elodiedh decided she needed a “comfort break”. To our delight the changing room door was manned by someone handing out Asda wipes and nappies.

Without sounding too stuck up I must admit that we’d never even considered using Asda own brand nappies. To our surprise they survived what we effectionately refer to in our house as a “mid-day mega poo”.

Well done Asda, you just might have won yourselves a new customer.

Onto the list and although Stokke had a very large presence at the show I was looking for something a bit cheaper but equally cheerful for our high chair.

Chicco had what seemed like a bargain offer for £25 but the prospect of carrying a massive box (and everything else) on the overground didn’t really apeal.

Onto Mothercare, Emma’s 5 month old baby shower vouchers were burning a hole in her pocket so we asked if we could order a chair we had our eye on but had previously been out of stock.

The answer was yes plus we also got a show discount off the current website discount and they delivered. Perfect.

Next on the list was Water Wipes which we love and have used exclusively on Elodiedh’s little bum bum since birth.

No other creams or powers or rashes, I can’t recommend them more.

They are a bit more expensive than some other brand of wipes which have the ability to strip paint (literally) but they are worth it.

Boots normally do deals but we knew that we could also get a good price by buying in bulk at the show so we walked away with 12 packs and a £1 off voucher for each of our NCT group mums.

Bibs was next on the listand although there was one brand I was looking forward seeing it turns out they weren’t exhibiting. No worries as there were almost as many stands selling bips as there were standing selling prams.

In the end we visited the stand which first caught our eye and that was Funky Giraffe bibs.

You can’t go wrong with 6 bibs for a tenner but the biggest problem was choosing which ones! I thought for a moment we were going to be upgrading to their next offer of 13 bibs for £20!

Onto the Mam bottles which you can get at a massive discount on at the baby show. After we picked up our freebie we brought as much as we could carry to see us through to weaning. We were at the stand for a while as Emma was waiting for one of our NCT group to text through her order. I took the time to give a random passer by my consumer  review on our SilverCross. The show did seem dominated by Silver Cross and iCandy whereas Cosatto were hanging their heads in shame in a corner somewhere after a roasting from Anne Robinson on the previous night’s Watchdog.

Now she sleeps through the night (snigger) we needed to get Elodiedh some sleeping bags. Sometimes the original are the best which is why we visited GroBag.

2 bags for £35, sold.

The size we brought were 6-18 months but by the size of it it’ll probably last till she starts secondary school. Not that I’m complaining as it’s nice to have something she isn’t going to grow out of in 10 minutes.

We did spend time sourcing a fantastic baby shower gifts but I’m not going to discuss them here as she might be reading.

Before we left we were drawn to Mr Mole blankets and had a customised Christmas stocking made for Elodiedh (she’s so spoilt).

With a bit of time to spare we explored some more and came across the Suppori slings. Elodiedh is a chunky monkey so carrying her around all day in some of the more well known branded baby carriers can be sweaty work, especially on the tube!

Suppori are made of some sort of fancy lightweight Japanese designed material which actually breaths!

After a fitting we made our last purchase of the day and were home in time for tea and biscuits.

We did pick up a few goodie bags through the day and when we got home we spread everything out over our dinning room table to inspect our bounty.

I’m not sure what we are going to do with some of it but the random bottle of window cleaner might come in handy at the studio to clean our computer screens.

Oh and if anyone needs “direct relief of discomforts in the external intimate area” let me know as I have a lovely gift pack just for you.

The Baby Show runs until Sunday at London Olympia.

Michael Shilling